Curiosity Cured the Cat
by theskyinourhearts
Summary: Jack Kelly finds a three-legged kitten and fluff ensues


Whilst Les liked to paint him as a combination of Billy the Kid and Abraham Lincoln, Jack Kelly was not by nature inclined to call himself the heroic type. When he had a cause that he believed in, he'd stand by it until the bitter end, but he wouldn't go out of his way for pointless heroics. A newsie had to think of himself first, and his boys a close second.

It was for this reason that Jack purposefully ignored the faint meowing from a nearby alley as he loitered by his favourite corner. Stars were beginning to make their faint presence known in the twilit sky and his bag only contained one final paper.

With the thought of his relatively soft bunk at the front of his mind, Jack focused on hawking his final headline with slowly diminishing enthusiasm as the sky darkened.

It was a poor headline; 'Peace Scores a Victory in the Hague'. As if people would rather read about some dusty convention than a good old-fashioned bloodbath. Not only that, but the damned meowing seemed to be getting louder.

If an animal sounded that pathetic, Jack reckoned, it should be dying, not gathering strength simply to throw him off his stride.

After being ignored for the 4th time in a row, Jack's patience snapped and he stormed into the alley. The cry had turned into straight forward yowling now and led him quickly to a tiny bundle of fluff half hidden by an old beer crate. Under a thick layer of dust, the newsboy could just about make out a skinny tabby kitten with disproportionately large eyes. Jack gave it a once over. Either his basic counting skills were worse than he'd thought, or the poor bastard was missing a leg.

He knelt down for a closer look. The darting movement of his shadow startled the kitten into silence and it simply blinked up at him, owlishly. Jack gave it a long hard stare.

"What do you want?" he muttered, knowing that even his reputation wouldn't survive being caught talking to a dumb animal.

The kitten 'meeped' in response.

From his kneeling position, the lightness of his bag was easily recognisable. If he was careful, the kitten could just about fit...No, that would be pointless. The damn cat wasn't long for this world and no one would want to buy a paper coated in cat hair. Kloppmann would never allow pets. What would the boys think if Jack Kelly came home cradling a kitten like a girl from some soppy book, the kind that Esther always wanted Les to read. No point at all. Why even bother.

"What am I gonna do with some dumb cat?" he wondered under his breath, as he carefully cradled the tiny bundle and arranged it so that its weight was off its stump leg in the bag.

Once settled, the cat looked up and let out a meow that somehow sounded smug to the newsboy.

Muttering about the futility of feline rescues, Jack returned for one last shot at the corner. As he assumed his usual position, the kitten rearranged itself up so its little orange face peeped over the top of the bag.

"Pape! Evening pape!" Jack hollered, albeit not wholeheartedly.

At that moment, a plump elderly woman in a smart purple coat crossed the road. She must have only been five feet tall, but her nose was higher than Jack's head. He didn't even bother shouting as she passed.

Strangely, she still stopped in front of the teenager. Jack braced himself for a tirade on loitering, or cleanliness, the proximity to godliness thereof.

Instead, the lady broke into a warm smile.

"Why isn't that just adorable," she sighed. She fiddled for her purse and pressed a coin into Jack's hand. "Just make sure you take care of this little fellow," she cooed and gave the kitten's ears a scratch before taking the paper and going on her way. "Keep the change!" she called over her shoulder.

Adorable? Jack preferred to think of his selling style as 'roguish charm' but he wouldn't complain if 'adorable' could earn him...a whole half dollar? Fifty cents for one lousy pape?

"Hey!" he called out after the lady, but she had already disappeared. Excessive as a half dollar was, Jack wasn't dumb enough to try and get rid of any of it.

"Guess you've got some use after all," he said to the kitten, too elated by the money to care about being seen talking to a cat.

Still, he couldn't keep the tiny moneymaker. But he couldn't exactly leave it to fend for itself, injured as it was. As he span the coin between his fingers, inspiration struck. The Jacobs' house! He could give it to Sarah so she could patch it up. Race had informed Jack that girls liked vulnerable things they could fix up.

Jack chose not to focus on what that said about Sarah liking him and thought instead of how David would receive him.

He might even say that Jack was a 'true philanthropist', like he had to Mush after he helped that blind guy on his way home.

Of course, David didn't know and didn't need to know that Mush had been using the blind guy as a barrier that even a truly irate Delancey brother wouldn't cross.

With a new spring in his step, Jack set off for the Jacobs residence.

After two blocks, he realised that the kitten had gone terribly quiet. Pausing with a suddenly pounding heart (what if it had died, what if it had died) he peered nervously inside the bag.

His heart plummeted down to his boots when he saw a complete lack of movement. Calm was only restored inside him when he saw the faint rise and fall of the kitten's chest. Jack breathed out gently when he saw the almost imperceptible wrinkling of the little creature's nose. Maybe...maybe it was a little too late to call on David. They would probably all be in bed. You probably had to go to bed before 9 when you had folks.

No, Kloppmann could stand to have a kitten in his lodging house for one measly night. And if any of the boys said anything, he'd damn well...he'd damn well say he was doing Sarah a favour.

So Jack returned to the lodging house with a bag that wasn't empty for the first time in years.

He was apparently the last Newsie to return and he paused in the doorway just long enough to give a dozing Kloppmann a respectful nod before bounding up the stairs as quickly as he could without jostling his bundle.

Once in the bedroom, he shielded the back with his body until he could tuck it safely away in his blankets, hidden from view. Luckily, his age and status (plus, according to Race, his bony elbows) guaranteed him a bunk of his own.

In the bustle of the boys getting ready for bed it was easy to avoid any questions. Jack washed himself perfunctorily, joining in with the jibes and boasts that were par for the course, but always maintaining a careful eye on the small bump in his sheets.

Eventually though, all the newsies were in bed. Jack hesitated before climbing up himself. Could he realistically avoid squashing the cat in the night?

Deciding that the answer was an emphatic 'no', he elected instead to loll against the bedpost and contemplate the ceiling.

This was an effective solution for approximately thirty seconds.

"Hey Jack, what you staring at?" shouted Mush from two bunks away. Instantly, every tousled head was raised to stare at their leader.

Jack fumbled for an answer. "Erm, just, you know...checking the supports. You know Kloppmann didn't exactly spend a fortune on these beds. One night, you could fall right down, get yourself a nasty injury."

He paused. Maybe that was stretching their faith in him a little too far.

"What a load of bull Jack," snorted Race, "You don't know a damn thing about architecture". Definitely a stretch too far. "What're you really up to?" This was joined by a chorus of 'yeah Jack, what're you doing?'

From his vantage point in the next bunk along, Crutchy could spot the small lump. "What's in your bag Jack?" he called out.

Immediately he was swamped by a crowd of nosey teenagers.

"Hey, hey, calm it down," he protested. Keeping the kitten a secret now would be all but impossible. So long as they didn't treat it too rough, it might be ok.

"Step back," he warned. The newsies moved by all of two inches. "Back, I told ya! You'll frighten him."

Sufficiently intrigued, the boys drew back. With unaccustomed care, Jack drew the kitten, who was somehow still sleeping, out of the bag and cradled him in his arms. "I'm looking after it for…"

Before he could finish his sentence, he was drowned out by the cooing of a dozen teenage boys. The noise was a good octave higher than they would normally be caught dead making. The kitten was prised, gently but firmly, from his grasp.

"Hi there, little buddy," whispered Specs.

"Aren't you a sweet little ginger fluff," crooned Kid Blink.

Jack watched in stupefied silence as his little sales assistant was passed around the group with something bordering reverence. Eventually it reached Race.

"Hey Jack, where's its other leg?" he called over, albeit several decibels quieter than his usual volume.

"It's off dancing with Medda. How the hell am I supposed to know," he replied. Race threw him a rude gesture.

"Not in front of Gingey," scolded Skittery.

This was too much for Jack. "Gingey? No. We are not calling him that."

This triggered a fierce debate, familiar to anyone who had ever witnessed the initiation of a new newsie. The kitten was thrust back to Jack, who found that this robbed him of his vote as he didn't want to loosen his two handed grip even a little.

After a few minutes, a verdict was reached. Crutchy (the apparent victor) took the ball of fluff with especial care, lifted him up, and announced, "We name you Tripod!"

"The hell?" Jack burst out, "That's worse than Gingey! That is godawful and you-"

He broke off. Crutchy looked genuinely hurt.

"I guess...if you really don't like it...you did find him…" Crutchy said softly. His bottom lip gave a miniscule tremble. His argument was further bolstered by the kitten waking up to lick at the boys ear.

"Fine," Jack said, throwing up his arms in defeat, "Tripod it is."

He managed to grapple the kitten, sorry, Tripod back and gestured at the boys to get to bed. Before he climbed into his own bunk, a thought struck him.

"Wait! Is he gonna make it through the night? What with his leg and all." He was met with a sea of distressed faces. Fortunately, the newsies were resourceful and the resident expert was soon summoned. Crutchy examined the kitten with medical intent.

"His leg seems fine," he announced to general relief, "It all looks to have healed up. He's just a bit dirty and too thin."

To remedy these two problems, a wet rag was brought through from the basins and a smaller boy was dispatched to swipe what little milk remained in Kloppmann's quarters. It was agreed that the keeping of Tripod was to be agreed with the paternal lodging house owner in the morning.

Once Tripod was suitably bathed and fed, a bed was made for him on a chair with a pair of longjohns that had too many holes to be wearable. Despite the adoring stares of the newsies, the kitten was soon fast asleep once more.

Jack swung himself into bed. Before he succumbed to sleep he removed his half dollar from a pocket and reached under his pillow. He drew out an envelope which was labelled 'Santa Fe' in clumsy lettering. He slipped the coin inside.

He had never been able to raise more than 52 cents in that envelope. One of the boys had always gone hungry, or needed medicine, or the small fee needed to keep a roof over their head. Now, it looked as though the Santa Fe Fund might be required for kibble instead.

Just as he was drifting off, Jack caught sight of Crutchy, still kneeling by the chair and running his hands gently through Tripod's fur. His gentle face was made still softer by an expression that he would never show in the daylight.

Jack's final thought was that the Santa Fe Fund would be going to a very good cause indeed.


End file.
